


Tomorrow

by WritingIsMyCoffee



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, but i also love to make my android kids suffer, character study??? sotra, the eden club is mentioned a lot but nothing explicit is said, yall i'd die for their friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 04:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16033298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingIsMyCoffee/pseuds/WritingIsMyCoffee
Summary: If it had been her standing over Simon instead of Markus, she still isn’t sure whether or not she could have pulled the trigger. Maybe in the moment, maybe if she truly believed without a doubt Jericho would fall because of it, she would have killed her best friend without a second thought. Because that’s who Simon is to her, even if she’ll never admit it.But the moment Markus approached her with a crazy scheme to steal bio-components, North sold her soul to their cause without a second thought. She didn’t care about anything, or anyone, after that





	Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> it's just angst yall really. just me crying about my robo kids and their rocky relationship

Harsh flakes of ice whirl through Detroit’s unforgivable winds, throwing North’s tangled braid around like a tattered whip. The inky blackness of the night sky hangs over her with hideous intentions, hiding the glorious sun she may not live to see tomorrow. There are a handful of stars scattered along the dark cosmos, offering her their aid in any way they can. All they really offer is the reminder of her helpless isolation, her sky the concrete below her feet and her fellow constellations her android brethren.

She is nothing more than a ball of gas, burning and burning and burning until eventually she will have nothing left to incinerate. Hatred seethes through her silicon veins, desperation clings to her back as the snowflakes dusting her sleeves, and the irresistible urge to break formation and _charge_ eats away at her like a parasite.

Yet, North stands her ground. Teeth grit, hands clenched, and thirium pump pounding, she summons forth all her anger to prepare herself for the bloodbath she knows is coming.

Instead, all North manages to summon is sorrow.

It’s a feeling she’s accustomed to, and at the same time has no idea how to greet. The heaviness of her heart is a foreign concept but was engraved into her very being since the day of her deviation. Like a mole on the back of her neck, it is always there just never fully present in appearance.

This sorrow, this aching pit in her gut, this indescribable suffocation of her very thoughts and feelings, should be directed at her fate. Of the shared fate of their kind, of the many lost at Jericho, for the loss of her home (for however short a time it may have been a home). It should be directed at Josh, for wasting every day given to her to break the bridge between them and never make amends. It should be directed at Markus, the man she trusts so foolheartedly despite their differences and lack of history.

Instead, it is directed at Simon.

Simon, who discovered her wandering the groaning steel hauls of Jericho with nothing but lingerie covering he body. Simon, who offered her his jacket and brought her to the lower deck safely as her body felt like it would give out from under her. Simon, who welcomed her to what was previously the only place she had ever felt safe. Simon, who never failed to offer his kindness when she most needed it, as if he could sense when she did. Simon, who repeatedly offered her a shoulder to cry on despite how clear it was at times how desperately he needed hers in return. How she never returned it will haunt her for the rest of her life (or the rest of this night, whichever comes last).

Simon, who they left behind to fend for himself with a busted leg. Simon, who in his time of need was no doubt counting on her help, only for her to jump at the chance to end his life.

North knows why she said what she said, and just as well as she cannot find herself chancing her mind about it. The need of the many outweighs the need of the few, and as the big-picture focused, compulsive woman she is she suggested what she thought was right.

If it had been her standing over Simon instead of Markus, she still isn’t sure whether or not she could have pulled the trigger. Maybe in the moment, _maybe_ if she truly believed without a doubt Jericho would fall because of it, she would have killed her best friend without a second thought. Because that’s who Simon is to her, even if she’ll never admit it.

But the moment Markus approached her with a crazy scheme to steal biocomponents, North sold her soul to their cause without a second thought. She didn’t care about anything, or _anyone_ , after that. Not when the promise of freedom seemed so possible, tangible enough to where she could grip it tightly in her hands and clutch it to her chest. Their victory means the death of so much evil in this world, even if it spurs its own kind in the aftermath. It means the destruction of The Eden Club, of Cyberlife, of _everything_.

It’s what North wants more than anything. Still, she spends the last of the calm before the storm side-eyeing the blond android a few yards away from her. She can’t see the bullet hole in his leg, or the lacerations across his chest, but she feels them on her own body all the same. His hands dangle freely at his sides, his fingers twitching with anticipation. Once, he reaches out for Markus’ own but falters, and North finds more timber to fuel his bonfire of remorse.

On their deathbed, she finds an uneasy softness in his gaze. Uneasy only because she does not understand it. She can’t comprehend such peace at a time like this. What has washed over him that has let to lap at her shores? Surely this cannot be the same man who grew timid at the thought to retaliation, who begged for them to run once guns where pointed at their heads?

Then again, it is the same man who not even an hour ago watched her fall before the enemy and suggested leaving her behind. Such words she had never expected from Simon, who wears his selflessness like a prideful badge. Then again, what was she expecting to hear in place of his haunting pleas? _‘It’s too late for her,_ ’ could never translate to, _‘We can’t leave her to die.’_

It hurts. It hurts North more than she thought it would, and why exactly continues to escape her. Because Simon was ready to let her die, or because he had become too much like her?

She needs to say something before these boulders atop her chest crush her to death. She needs to tell Simon she’s sorry ( ~~is she?~~ ), that she shouldn’t have left him on that tower ( ~~she had to~~ ), and most importantly of all tell him how much he means to her ( ~~even if the revolution will always come before him~~ ).

Her knees are quaking as she moves to approach him, but not even after her first step a man in an overcoat approaches their shelter and everything goes to hell.

 The hour blends together into moments of pure frenzy. Running, fighting, ducking, shielding, surviving. Gunfire and voices create a choir of terror that rattles violently inside North’s ears. The fire within her pushes her forward, even as her brethren fall all around her. Blue blood stains the ground beneath her feet, and the desire to hold a weapon in her own hand crawls up her spine.

Death is inevitable. North knows this. No matter how badly she wants to see the sunrise, to see The Eden Club go up in smoke, or to experience just one day without the constant presence of fear, she knows tonight is her last night on earth. The heavy feeling of realization refuses to let her forget it, and despite every bullet she dodges she knows the next one might as well have her name on it.

Minutes pass by too quickly to be savored and too slowly for North’s liking. They just need to make it to tomorrow. They just need to buy Connor enough time. That’s all they need to do. The simpler her brain tries to convince her it all is, the seedling of false hope in her chest continues to grow. It sprouts once they break out of their sorry excuse for a shelter and take off down the road, digging its roots in her limbs and gaining its nutrients from the passion incinerating her from the inside. Even as their group of survivors is picked off one by one and North finds herself running for her life without another soul by her side, it continues to grow.

Then she spots him. Simon, just a short way away to her right. He’s running behind her, an obvious limp in his stride. She sees the barrel of a rifle pointed at his back, the black mask of the armed human behind him a minion of the darkness above her head. They seem to have dripped down from the very sky to chop down the seedling that was about to shade her previous acceptance. For she knows the second that gun is fired she will lose so much more than a friend.

The act of breaking her stride comes without so much as a second thought, just like her decision on top of the Stratford tower. All North really does is run the other way, she doesn’t even need to stop to change directions. She doesn’t push Simon down or yell for him to watch his back.

She simply places herself behind him, takes the bullet, and falls.

The chaotic world around her seems to slow, the bursts of gunpowder and spattered thirium swirling like oil in the brown oceans of her irises. Every sound that previously drover her to madness is muffled, dulled to the point she can barely make it out anymore. She thinks she hears the rain of hot lead cease, and in its place is the desperate singing of her people as they make one last plea for their lives. The voices of her friends, her _family_ , put tears to her eyes and fills a void inside of herself she never knew needed to be filled.

Then the darkness retreats, and the fighting is over.

North tries to turn herself over to witness the sunrise she prayed for, but her limbs refuse to bend to her will. Her clouded eyes stare down the bloodied street, waiting for any sign of life to make their way to her, when a golden ray of sunlight suddenly bursts forth from the darkness. As it grows closer, the light begins to sway like the wheat fields of the lands outside the steel city, a site North has secretly always hoped to see. A smile graces her face.

Then the light is right on top of her, and as it wraps her up in tender, shaking arms, it takes the form of Simon. There’s thirium staining his face and tears streaming down his cheeks, but he continues to glow all the same.

“Hey Si…” North beams weakly up at him. “Did we win?”

He sniffs, blinking away his tears only for fresh ones to take their place. “You took that bullet for me.”

“Yeah…sure did…”

“ _Why?_ God, North, why did you-? Oh God, Markus? MARKUS! MARKUS HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME _PLEASE_ IT’S NORTH IT’S -”

North reaches a trembling hand to cup her cheek and forces him to look at her. She shushes him softly, her teeth barely having the strength to part themselves. “C’mon, Si…c’mon look at me. We both know…I’m not gonna make it.”

Simon shakes his head once, twice, a million times. “No. N-No, don’t say that. You’re gonna be alright. I’ve got you. Help‘s coming. Help’s-“

It comes without warning, the sudden rush of everything she’s been feeling leading up to this moment, and hot shame pours out of her as her own boiling tears. Simon goes deathly silent as she breaks, readjusting his hold on her as she shakes with wild sobs.

“I-I’m so sorry…I should n-never have left you on that tower. I know I c-couldn’t have killed you. Y-You mean so damn much to me, Simon. Please…please I’m so s-s- _sorry_ …”

 His cries echo alongside hers as she spills her confession, and as she gasps for what little breath his lungs will take in, he weeps out his own. “I told M-Markus to leave you…oh God, oh ra9 what was I thinking? What was I _thinking?!_ ” He reaches a hand up to wipe at his face, but North catches it in her own blood-stained hand.

“We weren’t thinking…we weren’t thinking…you don’t have to forgive me…I j-just wanted you to know before…y’know…I care about you, I r-really do-”

An incredible sound escapes Simon, something filled with so much heartbreak it rips out North’s own. “You didn’t need to _die_ to prove that to me. I’ve know that…I’ve always known that, North.”

Somewhere in that brief moment of hesitation between his words, North’s eyes lift to the sky above. The darkness is clearing, and in its place are slivers of blue and streaks of heaven’s light. Peace envelopes her like a warm blanket, and the inferno that was previously supplying that warmth is abolished. There is no more need for it.

Tomorrow has finally come. The smile returns to North’s face, and she squeezes Simon’s hand as the countdown in the corner of her vision reaches closer to zero.

“ _Hold on, just a little while longer…_ ”

Simon goes rigid beneath her, a shaky breath escaping him. “North…”

“ _H-Hold on…j-just a little while longer…_ ”

“North…! North, I see someone coming! Nor-“ But as Simon looks down to her, she is already gone. The sun rises above Detroit as her moon finally sets.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading :)


End file.
